The other thing I wondered is: is all this effort worth it?
On a phone kodi is probably going to be stopped frequently by the operating system due to other apps coming to the foreground and battery saving sleep states.
You're not likely going to get reliable recordings.
An always on tv box should be ok though.

Also I still haven't found a comfortable kodi skin for phones. Tablets maybe.
I did make the Naked skin a while ago for phones but it is very spartan and needs updating for Krypton and Leia.

I was wondering about that. I've only set up kodi in the past few days. But I did have my provider's app installed last week and was able to stream video continuously all afternoon. Not having a lot of experience with android and phones, I wonder if android apps are lighter on system resources than Kodi and Kodi addons. I've yet to try streaming video in Kodi for anything over a few minutes of testing. But there's not a lot of apps installed on the stock tiny 8 GB memory. And if I root it I can pull many useless ones out, like the T-Mobile app that constantly hounds me to update it..

What is it about estuary that makes you want for another skin? Thankfully google answers all my questions about navigating it coming from my favorite xconfluence and Confluence Customizable Mod before it.

Hello I need some help. I'm not an experienced Kodi user. I've only used Kodi for simple stuff. So I'm getting lost into how I go using this great addon on Android. My goal is to try it on Android TV, nexus player, Sony TV and LeEco TV. But if necessary I'm ready to buy the Shield TV if it offers more stable machine.
I've been looking for weeks on ways to record IPTV to no avail. Any solutions out there do not work for me. I've gone thru 3 HDMI recorder testing if they fit my needs but they all have something I did not like..My only hope is this add on. By the way Thank you so much Primaeval for your work on this. We owe you a treat and a soda. I know you've been using Shield, I'm ready to go get one if it's better the nexus player.
My issues are due to my inexperience with Kodi. THe instructions a geared toward Kodi users. I installed Krypton on my phone. Installed IPTV Simple CLient, imported my local m3U. and I can play the streams. But now I tried to install this add on. I'm kind of confused a little but this what I didi:

I chose Install from Zip file method usually used in Kodi: Added this as source in File Manager https://github.com/primaeval/plugin.video.iptv.recorder. Then from Package Installer I triy to install from zip file...I get a failure...Not sure what I'm missing as step.
Also can you clarify th step after this one. If I get the zip file to install. On Android How do I get ffmeg on the device? Somewhere the instructions say to get it for your device and other place it says for Android the plugin will copy it. So I'm confused if we do need to manually copy it and where we put it or if the plug will do the job itself.

Please help me. Bear with me since I'm not used to Kodi. But really need this. There's no better alternative out there. Hardware or software wise for recording IPTV.

Then you need to get a binary of ffmpeg for your device. That might be tricky for some of your devices.
Use something like this to find out what Android architecture you have or look at the top of the kodi.log file.https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai....droidinfo

If not use Google to find an ffmpeg binary for your device and architecture.

Unzip the ffmpeg binary like your Download folder and point to it in
IPTV Recorder \ Settings \ Jobs and Rules \ ffmpeg exe
On the first recording the addon will copy ffmpeg to somewhere it can run it.

Leave the Kodi Recordings Folder as default for now until you've got recording working.

If you're lucky you can just do
Maintenance \ Reload Data
to load the xmltv and m3u files from IPTV Simple Client.

Go into Channel Groups, find a program and Record Once.

If that works you can start messing around finding out where you can change your Recordings path to.
That could cause problems depending on your device as Kodi doesn't have permission to write everywhere. See a few posts back.

Thank you so much for the quick reply....I was able to go all the way to down to the step of pointing ffmpeg. But now I don't know how I load my channels. I can't figure out how to do Maintenance\ Reload Data to see if it works. I only have in Maintenance\ Job or Rules and both are empty. There's no reload options.
Also if I don't know the alternative to load the m3u. So I can't proceed to Channels grouping to try the recording with my current ffmpeg. Thanks again for your help.

I forgot you need to turn on debug menus to see the Reload Data button.
Settings \ Debug \ Debugging Menu Items

Restarting Kodi should trigger an update too.
Look in
Settings \ Service \ Background Service
to see when it should update.

Beware that if IPTV Simple Client gets its data from local files that another addon fetches at startup, they might not be ready for IPTV Recorder on startup.
That is what the Startup Delay setting is for.

I have errors when trying to record a stream. Some investigation has established

xmltv.db is OK
If I use the channel groups to select a current programme and select watch once the stream plays.

However selecting record once creates errors and the recording dosn't happen checking the error log suggests the url has not been resolved correctly and there are some errors stating "No converter provided, unicode should be used, but returning str value"

(2018-09-12, 18:59)Foxxyfox Wrote: I have errors when trying to record a stream. Some investigation has established

xmltv.db is OK
If I use the channel groups to select a current programme and select watch once the stream plays.

However selecting record once creates errors and the recording dosn't happen checking the error log suggests the url has not been resolved correctly and there are some errors stating "No converter provided, unicode should be used, but returning str value"

Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You'll have to post or pm me a log. Make sure there aren't any banned addons in there and mask out any of your passwords that might be in the urls.

As watching works I would have thought that it is something to do with your ffmpeg and recording paths.

Thanks for the instructions...I was able to go all the way with the set up. My issue is now that no Channels are listed. I can see the groupings from my m3u lists. But no chanels. the same m3u are working fine in VLC and other android apps. I know m3u are sometimes picky between applications. They don't always work in every single app by may experience. One working in this app may not work in the other. It may need some tweaking to the application requirements. Do you have a sample m3u working I can use to see what's wrong or test with.
Something to note is that m3u is working in IPTV simple Client. But I decided to not set up IPTV simple client again....since I had to factory reset my nexus player. I went ahead and just try to use the m3u list in your Add on. Is that OK? No channels are showing only the different groupings from the m3u. Also I do not have the EPG so no XMLT. I'm not sure if that's the issue and I do need that in order for this to work.
I will try to go back and set up Simple Client and play them there and then point this addon to Simple Client. I will report ....
But meanwhile here's below my m3u url. I know it's loading since I can see the grouping from them.https://pastebin.com/wa4xjawZhttps://pastebin.com/raw/rmNHHR3C

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About Kodi

Kodi is a free and open source media player application developed by the XBMC Foundation, a non-profit technology consortium.

Kodi is available for multiple operating-systems and hardware platforms, featuring a 10-foot user interface for use with televisions and remote controls. It allows users to play and view most videos, music, podcasts, and other digital media files from local and network storage media and the internet.